The Legend

I would like to take a moment to congratulate myself on the unfettered heroism that exists on this Blog of Valiance; it's, I'm sure, quite easy to read the preceding entries and assume that I spend my days solving crimes & rescuing babies from burning buildings, returning home to drink coffee, smoke, and glorify my exploits in cyberspace...
Karmic acknowledgement notwithstanding, I, alas, tend to bring these situations on myself...but so what? Kudos to Corn Flakes, I'll take a compliment as far as it will go, benign though the accomplishments might be:
Me:
"Racism is stupid."
Audience of, maybe, four:
"Right on!"
If that makes me a hero, which it does, then so be it.
This approach, however, has been critiqued, the writing considered "aloof" by one such reviewer, which, to my mind, is less unflattering then an affirmation that things are, indeed, what they seem...like stating that sharks swim, or that monkeys are filthy.
Egomania & Dipshittery - never let it be said that the writing doesn't live up to the promise of the title.
Oh, there'll be more "critiques"; I'm signed up for a bunch, eagerly awaiting one in particular from these cats...kindred souls or worthy targets for a scathing back-and-forth, InterWeb style?
[rubbing hands together in anticipation]
Solipsism is the new Bashful.

The Legend Grows

Dipshit Dad Down the Hall: Another Conversation

[While waiting for the elevator, Dipshit Dad opens his door while still talking to someone inside his apartment]
Dipshit Dad:
Yeah; no frickin' shit!
[Dipshit Dad turns and sees me; he freezes, then turns and locks his door, settling in beside me to wait for the elevator; what follows would normally be referred to as a "painful silence"]
Me:
Did I hear you call one of your kids a "fucking animal" earlier?
Dipshit Dad:[exasperated]
I was talking to my wife!
Me:
[pause]
Ah.
[more hilarious silence; then, said silence is abruptly drowned out by the theme-music to "COPS" - I'm not kidding]
Me:
[broad smile]
Are your kids in there watching "COPS"?
Dipshit Dad:
[REALLY sarcastically]
Oh, is that a crime?
Me:
It should be.
[glare from Dipshit Dad - he's staring hard at the elevator-button, hoping that the light will go off, signifying that the elevator has arrived - there is palpable tension, with a glorious soundtrack of "bad boys, bad boys, whatchu gonna DOOO"]
Me:
You ever thought about watching your mouth around your kids?
[Dipshit Dad ignores me, cutting a laser-beam hole into the elevator-button with his eyes]
Me:Seriously.
[pause]
'Cause you sound like a fucking maniac in there.
[Dipshit Dad looks at me as though he's going to punch me; he doesn't]
Me:
[being an absolute shit]
Never crossed your mind?
[the elevator still hasn't come at this point; Dipshit Dad just stands there, sinking under the weight of his own rage]
Me:
Did you just say "frickin"?
[as soon as I opened my mouth, Dipshit Dad turned and walked towards the stairs]
Me:
[as the door to the stairs opens, I thrust my hands up into the air]
Victory!

A Surrender in Three Parts

Being Excellent: Fourth in a Series

Remember, I'm here to help.
I, for a good while now, have tried to exorcize qualifiers from my didactic writing, but it turns out that I’m just too compassionate; it’s a constant burden, I’ll admit. Sometimes, however, "telling it like it is" has to be replaced by "telling it in the best way possible so as not to have to deal with the stream of self-indulgent moaning or watery, close-to-tears eyes of the told". And though this may sound like, to the outside observer, the flakiness of a self-propelled Soapbox-Sermonizer, it is, in actual fact, another example of sheer, breathtaking Excellence.
You see, Being Excellent in and of itself casts an unyielding, monolithic shadow over the unExcellent forevermore...like the ebbing feeling of being "ten-feet-tall" while looking up at a skyscraper that blocks one’s view of the sky.
So, like a man too-tall for doorways, I find myself literally and metaphorically "ducking" so that others can, sometimes, see that sky; some might call that an Excellence so inborn, so overwhelming, as to send the whole concept of Excellence into an entirely different vista...a sunny field of Absolute Excellence in which the unExcellent run about like five-year-olds chasing the butterfly of Capability while rolling in the dewy-grasses of Aptitude.
I am the balm for all your unExcellent heat-bumps, the soothing, calming centre of Excellence that could be the Trampoline of Self-Esteem for your leap of faith.
Excellence could be just a "boing" away.

Fifth in a Series

Dipshit Dad Down the Hall: A Conversation

[Knock knock; Dipshit Dad opens door]
Dipshit Dad:Yes?
Me:What's going on?
Dipshit Dad:
What do you mean?
Me:Every time I walk past your door, I hear either you and your wife-whatever screaming at each other, or some kids howling uncontrollably.
Dipshit Dad:Oh...Joshua accidentally elbowed Alex...
Me:
Is that why I heard you yelling, "you fucking asshole"?
[Dipshit Dad closes door behind him to chat with me in the hall]
Dipshit Dad:
What is your problem?
Me:I don't particularly enjoy listening to children shrieking and crying while you yell "fucking bitch" at your wife-whatever every time I go to get my laundry.
[pause]
It doesn't create a pleasant atmosphere.
Dipshit Dad:Are you telling me how to raise my kids?
Me:
I wasn't, but you obviously don't know what you're fucking doing.
Dipshit Dad:
Fuck you.
Me:
Dude, you wear a button-up shirt tucked into fucking jogging pants when you walk him to school; do you evenknow what that must do to your kid's self-esteem?
Dipshit Dad:
Fuck off.
[slams door]
Me:Nice talking with you.

Another Conversation

The Word "Glagh", Idealism, and the Epicurean Nature of My Dogs

As full of bacterial-mouth-spray as it is harsh-pragmatism, "Glagh" (sometimes pronounced in the prolonged, dramatic form "Glaaaaaaaagh!") is a throat-rending exclamation of all worldly frustration, a tongue-shaking vociferation of all cosmic calamity; when uttered in the quiet computer-room of my swank apartment, well, it drives my dogs nuts.

(Did you ever hear about the pirate with the steering-wheel sticking out from the crotch of his pants? When asked about it, the buccaneer expressed surprise and stated, in a raspy swashbuckler‘s voice, "I don’t know, but it drives me nuts".)

(You’re welcome.)

"Glagh" could very well turn out to be the greatest word creation since "antidisestablishmentarianism", but you wouldn’t know it by the baleful looks I receive from my cute, little puppies as I spew the word into their furry bellies; you would think that I was torturing them with heated-up chimney-pokers, but, of course, you’d be wrong.

For all of their obvious good traits, one of the faults my dogs share is an adverse reaction to progress, to the New; if they had their druthers, they would just sit back, eat, and get fat off the backs of others, swelling up on all the food earned from back-breaking labour and sacrifice.

I’m trying to change the world, one word at a time, and all they care about is if I’m going to share my pizza with them.

Bastards.

Glagh!

Being Excellent: Third in a Series

Sometimes you’re inclined to teach somebody something.
Is that last sentence too vague? Not if you’re Excellent it isn’t.
You see, much like having a pantload of money tends to push the too-rich towards the assuring, conscience-friendly realm of "charity", possessing an over-abundance of Excellence brings with it the need, no, thecompulsion to give back, in whatever form this desire takes - and, like plastic surgery in a dark garage, the results can sometimes be pretty atrocious. The problem lies, invariably, in your utter inability to teach something that you’re SO GOOD at, regardless of said thing’s general ease. Being Excellent, you’re probably very good at a lot of things, and you got very good at them because you were already good at them right off the bat; and what you, almost inconceivably, aren’t good at, well...chances are that you’re not doing that thing very much.

Teaching something that you’re naturally good at to someone who isn’t nearly as naturally gifted is, quite possibly, the most frustrating feeling in the entire world, or at least irritating...like hearing someone laugh before you get to the punch-line: they don’t know what funny is; they’re just trying to fit in. Therein lies the problem: does an unExcellent person REALLY want to know that thing that you’re twisting yourself into knots trying to explain?

If you’re a total ass like me, then probably not...though even if your relative assness isn’t as acute as my own, you’re still coming off looking like that golf-shirt-addled guy wearing sunglasses on an overcast day in a cherry-red convertible: maybe you’re doing what’s right for you, but you look like a total dickhead.

So, don’t teach. If you must, may I suggest this as an Excellence-barometer: charisma.

True Excellence can not, under any circumstances, be achieved without it...though, to be honest, the reverse isn’t true: I know many an unExcellent chap who have more charisma than a cloned-army of Paul Newmans but who also couldn’t snag themselves Excellence if it was in an empty room, at eye-level, bathed in bright, shiny, blinking lights, with an audio-soundtrack of "take me!" blaring from cranked-up loudspeakers in a honey-drenched voice...unfortunately, like the logic of this writing, this dichotomy of Excellence is a terrible characteristic to contend with.

Good luck.

Fourth in a Series

Being Excellent: Second in Series

All right. Now, as was asked of you last time, you’re good at something.
How does that make you feel?
I’ll tell you; you should feel like a million bucks...maybe two. You shouldn’t be sitting there, shrugging your shoulders and mumbling, "so what" to yourself in that tiny, mousy voice - the one you use to say "sorry" with when you’ve been flat-out busted for gawking at that hot chick in the mall, the one powerfully timbre-challenged, with all the resonance of a damp match being lit in a murky jungle.
I’ll have you know: this is powerful stuff right here.
Look, it’s not what you do, but the verve with which you do it. There are Scrabble tournaments, for chrissake; you can win $500 for spending a year of your life making a goddamned gingerbread house, another $1000 playing table-hockey, and then, like a syrupy cherry on the top of an ice-cream-cake in the image of Buckingham Palace, you can sit back and become famous for spasmodically slashing at your hair in some YouTube freakout.
Still, these aren’t examples of Excellence, are they? Rather, they are the manically self-indulgent obsessions of those who are lucky enough to have something "legitimate" enough for their parents to stop asking when they’re going to find the right girl/guy, and when, if ever, they’re planning to procreate. True Excellence, my friend, isn’t dollars and/or sense, but that strut you wear instead of those stone-washed-jeans, the swagger you show-off as you push through the throngs of the self-absorbed, the smirk you level at those nose-deep in their PowerBooks...and you’ll inevitably get the Double-Take.
Oh, yes. That beautiful, transcendent, quasi-orgasmic Double-Take.
The first look is of irritation, no doubt; to most, you’ll look like some half-mad ignoramus, waltzing down the street with hilarity in your eye and sarcasm on your lips...but that second look, the one where the squint is a little sharper, the attention paid a little deeper - that look is the one where they are asking themselves what you’re so fucking happy about. And it’s GOLD.
The Double-Take signifies the ruination of someone’s day; they have seen what they could be enjoying, on any old street, at any old time, and their ambition-related stress melts away, if only for a second, as they rue the fact that you’re enjoying yourself, for no other reason than because you’re Excellent. The anger will sit with them, confusing them on the way to their PowerPoint presentation, hopefully extending into the next week, where it lays in their subconscious, in wait, like a panther of doubt in the dense, humid brush of their mind, giving them terrible, uncomfortable-no-matter-what-your-PosturePedic-sleep-number-bed-is-set-at dreams of their own half-assed, failed attempts at glory...
Indeed, true Excellence sometimes borders on schadenfreude, but them’s the breaks.

Third in a Series